Shontel Brown had the Ohio Democratic establishment behind her and vowed to advance a big-tent brand of left-of-center politics. Nina Turner, backed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, essentially said compromise and incrementalism were for suckers. Brown beat Turner in Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Cleveland.
The early triumph of moderation holds a moral for Democrats as they head into the 2022 elections looking to hold onto the House and Senate: Don’t take the vital center (which yes, still exists, whatever progressive activists might suggest to the contrary) for granted.
Turner, a former city councilwoman and state senator, was all-in for “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal, for canceling student debt and setting a nationwide $15 minimum wage. Brown, the local party chairwoman, has called for a more incremental, dare we say Bidenesque approach, with the goal of hitting single after single rather than only swinging for the fences and frequently striking out.
While northern Ohio Democrats made a wise choice, a primary in the center of the state showed the lengths to which the GOP must go if it wants to free itself from the clutches of Donald Trump, who can get millions to the polls but is also sure to alienate suburban moderate Republicans, who care about little things like decency, sanity and stability.
Mike Carey, a coal mining executive who wants to build a southern border wall and who calls the Second Amendment “absolute,” also won an Ohio primary with Trump’s strong support against what the ex-president called a gang of RINOs. Trump will now use the victory as proof that the GOP electorate hangs on his every word, which unfortunately isn’t entirely untrue.
Of course, these are safe districts for their respective parties The stakes are far higher in the vanishing number of districts where Democrats and Republicans have roughly equal shots at winning — and where fealty to my-way-or-the-highway progressivism on the one hand, or Trumpism on the other, could and should prove toxic.
— Tribune News Service
